MIH548 - Theory Based Research - Mod 3 SLP Essay

MIH548 - Theory Based Research - Mod 3 SLP - Essay Example Also included are operational variables of BMI and waist circumference as well as physical activity and use of high energy foods (Pietilainany, Kapro, Rasomen, 2001). The variables that were operationalized were BMI, waist circumference, high energy food intake. They set an average BMI over the years of study per age group as well as waist circumference. The last studies of these groups of children were done when they reached the ages of 22-27 years old. Waist circumferences and high energy food intake were also defined along this continuum of study. One of the validity tests that they had to use here was the statistical conclusion validity and the reason for that is because there are many different variables being used. The most important variable to look at here is the use of twin to measure genetic effects on activity and obesity. All of the genetic backgrounds were traced and these twins did meet all of the criteria for a valid study showing that the statistical results were appropriate given the causal nature of the genetic part of the study (Burns & Grove, 2007). Internal validity is about whether this is real world testing and in this case it certainly is as there are definitely real world issues for twins like any other child as far as developing or not developing obesity. Extraneous validity is important also and these children were allowed to live their normal lives with each of the parameters that might affect them tracked and then checked again over the years. In other words it was not set up that one twin would be sedentary while the other was active leading to one that was obese and one that was not. They lived their usual lives and if one was obese, it was determined by the real lifestyle that child led. Mustelin L, Silventoinen K, Pietalainen K. (2009) Physical activity reduces the influence of genetic effects on BMI

Public health Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Public health - Essay Example As such, they must also be addressed on a regional level and it appropriately becomes the function of the government to take adequate measures to control the outbreak of infectious diseases. The utility of such integrated approached have been demonstrated many time before. The reduction of typhoid incidences in nineteenth century France have been attributed to improved sanitation facilities (Woods, 2003), and the prolonged vector breeding and parasite transmission reduction programs have been responsible for the remarkable reduction of malaria in South America, Central America and many Asian countries. Johansson and Mosk (1997) have detailed the impact of public health interventions on adult mortality rates in Japan. The choice of India for the evaluation of it’s communicate disease and emergency control facilities is justified both by the size of her population as well as the emerging role that she is destined to play in the socio political activities of the future. India is endowed with immense resources – mineral, natural, cultural as well as in terms of trained and untrained manpower. The administrative capacity of Indian Government is considerable. Within a span of fifty years from her Independence, the nation has exponentiated its agricultural production, dampened surging growth rates and successfully withstood massive famines. The reach of the bureaucracy spans the entire subcontinent from where it effectively collects revenues, conducts the largest democratic elections in the world and through periodic census creates an immense pool of statistical data. Indian pharmacology, medicine and information processing skills have already attracted the attention of the world. . Its b asic public health infrastructure (laboratories, clinics etc) has been successful at carrying out complicated development programs requiring a high level of coordination and outreach-such as increasing agricultural production

Problems of Organisational Research

Problems of Organisational Research EVIDENCE AND THE PROBLEM OF ORGANISATIONAL RESEARCH. Research is a process that people go through in order to find out answers to questions in a systematic way, which will then increase their knowledge (Ghauri and Gronhaug, 2005) in Saunders et al (2007). The purpose of this review essay is to critically discuss evidence and the problem of organizational research, using four academic articles. This review will amongst other things, try to outline the debate on possible approaches to business research, look at the arguments for evidence based research and give an explanation of the problems identified with this approaches. The first article under review is by M. Saunders, P. Lewis and E. Thornhill, (2007) titled ‘The nature of business and management research, taken from their Research Methods for Business Students. This article discusses the debates on the status of business and management research. One popular aspect of this debate is on the ‘transdisciplinary nature of management research. This is a situation whereby knowledge from different disciplines helps management research in no small measure to advance, which otherwise cannot be gotten from the disciplines separately. Another debate arising from this article is ‘that research should complete a virtuous circle of theory and practice (Tranfield and Starkey, 1998) in Saunders et al (2007). This is whereby business and management research will have to apply both theory and practice to increase knowledge. The third debate which this article discusses is how management research can meet the double hurdle of been rigorous both in theory and method while engaging the world of practice and relevance (Hodgkinson et al, 2001) in Saunders et al (2007). This debate arises mainly from Gibbons et al (1994) work on the production of knowledge and its concepts. The implications of these debates are that business and management research will now have ‘to address business issues and practical managerial problems in addition to advancing knowledge and understanding. This however may turn out to be a problem because research that has no commercial value now might have value in the future (Huff and Huff, 2001) in Saunders et al (2007). The second article, ‘Evidence based management by Pfeffer and Sutton(2006), discusses the issue that managers, very much like doctors, rely on outdated knowledge, traditional ways of doing things and their own methods and skills. As with medicine according to Pfeffer and Sutton (2006), managers should in addition to practice and experience, use best logic and evidence to achieve better results. This is because, as opined by Pfeffer and Sutton (2006), even though research on medical practices abound, doctors do not use them. This is the case also with managers because as per their argument, ‘managers are actually much more ignorant than doctors†¦.and they are less eager to find out. Although Pfeffer and Sutton (2006) posit an evidence based movement among managers, they do not loose sight of the challenges which are that the evidence is weaker because everyone lays claim to been a management expert and because of the dynamics from one company to another, that what works for one company may not work for another company. Reasons why managers prefer to make decisions that are not based on new evidence without giving it a serious thought, according to Pfeffer and Sutton (2006) is that they rely heavily on past experience. Dogma and belief is another major driver of managers decisions while ideology has its own fair share of the blame. Hype and marketing also plays a major role in the decisions taken by managers as much as imitation of another companys style; so does casual benchmarking though if well utilized can be cost effective but what works in one company may not work for another. In spite of the factors militating against evidence based management, as posited by Pfeffer and Sutton (2006), ‘organizations will perform better if leaders knew and applied the best evidence. This boils down to the point of ‘providing training, technologies and work practices so staff can take the critical results of the best studies to the bedside. These managers can achieve through demanding evidence, adopting a neutral stance towards ideologies and theories, examining logic, treating the organization as an unfinished prototype, embracing the attitude of wisdom and cultivating the right balance of humility and decisiveness, Pfeffer and Sutton (2006). The third article under review, ‘The narrative of evidence based management: a polemic by Morrell K, (2008) discusses that evidence based management is an offshoot of evidence based medicine which tries to apply ‘the conscientious, explicit, and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions (Sackett et al 1996) in Morrell(2008). Based on the extensive research carried out in the field of evidence based management, agencies of government and policy makers have taken on board principles of evidence based management, even though there is still no consensus as to what really evidence is in management studies or on what will be used the determine the quality of evidence (Dopson, 2006) in Morrell (2008). This article also points out the political and moral implications for management both as research and practice, arguing that ‘current attempts to translate the principles of evidence based management have overlooked the role of ethics and judgments (Sackett et al, 1996) in Morrell (2008). Morrell (2008) is of the opinion that not all those pushing for ‘evidence based approaches were in tune with each other as they used different variants to achieve their own purposes. However, they share the view about the relationship that management research has to management practice and the modes of research and forms of knowledge production that it promotes. Morrell (2008) argues that ideology has a part to play in evidence based management and the strands which he identified which can be traced are pragmatism, progress, systematization, technique and accumulation. Based on these, there is a commitment to positivism which means that our knowledge of the social world increases through experiment and that there should be a more scientific approach to the research of the social. This, according to (Hammersly, 2001) in Morrell (2008), is explicit in the goal of building an evidence base or knowledge stock which will give evidence about the social world. Consequent upon these, those who are in support of evidence based approaches state the intention of carrying out research to inform practice as according to (Young et al, 2002) in Morrell(2008), a common belief is that evidence is key to encouraging the adoption of practices by those who are entrusted with policy formulation or other players. The third argument propounded here is the commitment to and development of a common language with the adoption and redefinition of key terms, ‘through, ‘objective, ‘transparent, ‘rigorous, ‘systematic and ‘narrative. Here, existing criticism has overlooked the lapses in evidence based literature, yet, making it too simple, restraint and regimentation will have both political and moral implications that can lead to liberty been curtailed, Morrell, (2008). From the arguments, it is clear that evidence based approach offers a fresh scope to analysis using an esthetic that highlights the political and moral implications of the approach to management. As opined by (McLaughlin 2001) in Morrell (2008), researchers aspire to a way of evaluating the quality of proven evidence. Morrell argues that the apparent lack of a common ground in management studies is a problem because consensus is needed if the study of management will grow. This is because even in medicine where there seems to be a certain level of agreement, ‘the adoption of promising practices is not governed by the principles of evidence, robust scientific evidence is not, of itself, sufficient to ensure diffusion Morrell (2008). The fourth and final article under review, ‘Dynamic Capabilities and Knowledge Management: an Integrative Role for Learning?, Eaerby-Smith and Prieto (2008), discusses the dynamic capabilities approach of strategic management (Eisenhardt and Martin, 2000; Teece, Pisano and Shuen, 1997) in Easterby-Smith and Prieto (2008) which sets out to show why some organizations succeed more than others in building competitive advantage within changing markets. Here, the management of knowledge has been put forward as a primary strategic initiative and the most important factor that will guarantee a sustained competitive edge for companies (Grant, 1996) in Easterby-Smith and Prieto (2008). While the dynamic capabilities school emphasizes the renewal of resources by reconfiguring them into new capabilities and competencies as posited by (Teece, Pisano and Shuen, 1997) in Easterby-Smith and Prieto (2008), While the dynamic capabilities school emphasizes the renewal of resources by reconfiguring them into new capabilities and competencies as posited by (Teece, Pisano and Shuen, 1997) in Easterby-Smith and Prieto (2008), according to (Cepeda and Vera, 2005) in Easterby-Smith and Prieto (2008), knowledge management research often focuses on providing solutions to managers to create, retain transfer and use an enterprises explicit and tacit knowledge. This article under review relates to the debate in the sense it shares some views with the other authors. According to Easterby-Smith and Prieto (2008), there are times when researchers, without been aware of it, use ideas and models drawn from other fields not knowing the discussions that have lead to the constructs coming to light, and this sometimes leads to a confusion of concepts between the fields. Again, because researchers may not know the potential limitations in the other field, they may build their research on quick sand. Furthermore, without proper information of the other field, researchers may loss opportunities to better develop their own fields. In relation to the other articles, the idea of knowledge management has become important due to the increased awareness of the importance of knowledge for a companies prosperity and survival, (Grant, 1996; Kogut and Zander, 1992) in Easterby-Smith and Prieto (2008). In this article, Lave and Wenger (1991), come up with the idea that knowledge is ‘situated in the practice of everyday work, while (Cook and Yanow, 1993; Nicolini and Meznar, 1995; Nicolini, Gherardi and Yanow, 2003) propound the idea that organizational knowledge is sustained through social processes within ‘communities of practice. In the light of all that that has been reviewed, it can be deduced that even though the writers of these articles seek to find the right approach to solving the problems of organizational research, they go about it in different ways and have their own views. They however share similar ideas and even though there is no consensus. REFERENCES: Easterby-Smith, M., Prieto, I.M. (2008), Dynamic Capabilities and Knowledge Management: an Integrative Role for Learning? British Journal of Management, 19, pp235-249. Morrell, K. (2008), â€Å"The Narrative of ‘Evidence Based Management: A polemic†, Journal of Management Studies, vol.45 no.3, pp613-635. Pfeffer, J and Sutton, R, (2006), ‘Evidence based management, Harvard Business Review, Jan, pp63-74. Saunders, M., Lewis, P. and Thornhill, E. (2007), ‘Research methods for Business Students, London: Prentice Hall, pp4-9.

Installing an Intake :: essays research papers

Installing an aftermarket intake is easier then you think with these easy to follow instructions. All that is needed are a few basic tools: a regular screw driver (flat head) and a ratchet with a 3/8† bit and an adjustable wrench. There is no need to jack the car up for installing this part; all that is needed is to pop the hood.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  After you have gathered all of your tools, pop the hood and get familiar with what you we will be replacing. The intake is the big black plastic box found at the lower left hand corner of the engine and the pipe that runs up to the intake manifold that is at the top of the engine. What the short ram intake does is create a more direct path to the intake manifold; it also increases the amount of air taken in with the bigger filter. Before doing anything to the car, it is always a good idea to take the negative terminal off the battery just so there is no power in the wires in case something slips. Use your adjustable wrench and loosen the negative terminal on the battery. Now just pull the wire off and let it rest somewhere on the battery making sure it is not touching the positive terminal or the negative terminal.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Now that the battery is disconnected, let’s start by loosening the clamp at the intake manifold and the intake pipe. Use the screw driver and loosen the clamp until you can get your small finger underneath the clamp. There should be two bots holding down the intake box. Use the ratchet with your 3/8† bit and use the bolts right out and place them somewhere safe in case you ever decide to put the old intake back on. Now that the bolts are out, carefully pull up on the air box and remove it from the connecting pipes under it. The air box should just come up so just wiggle it a bit if it appears to be stuck. Now pull the intake pipe off the intake manifold but watch for the clamp you will need this for the next step. Once again if it appears to be stuck just, give it a little wiggle. Now pull the entire piece out of the engine and you will notice a lot of free space. You are now ready to put in the AEM short ram intake. Installing an Intake :: essays research papers Installing an aftermarket intake is easier then you think with these easy to follow instructions. All that is needed are a few basic tools: a regular screw driver (flat head) and a ratchet with a 3/8† bit and an adjustable wrench. There is no need to jack the car up for installing this part; all that is needed is to pop the hood.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  After you have gathered all of your tools, pop the hood and get familiar with what you we will be replacing. The intake is the big black plastic box found at the lower left hand corner of the engine and the pipe that runs up to the intake manifold that is at the top of the engine. What the short ram intake does is create a more direct path to the intake manifold; it also increases the amount of air taken in with the bigger filter. Before doing anything to the car, it is always a good idea to take the negative terminal off the battery just so there is no power in the wires in case something slips. Use your adjustable wrench and loosen the negative terminal on the battery. Now just pull the wire off and let it rest somewhere on the battery making sure it is not touching the positive terminal or the negative terminal.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Now that the battery is disconnected, let’s start by loosening the clamp at the intake manifold and the intake pipe. Use the screw driver and loosen the clamp until you can get your small finger underneath the clamp. There should be two bots holding down the intake box. Use the ratchet with your 3/8† bit and use the bolts right out and place them somewhere safe in case you ever decide to put the old intake back on. Now that the bolts are out, carefully pull up on the air box and remove it from the connecting pipes under it. The air box should just come up so just wiggle it a bit if it appears to be stuck. Now pull the intake pipe off the intake manifold but watch for the clamp you will need this for the next step. Once again if it appears to be stuck just, give it a little wiggle. Now pull the entire piece out of the engine and you will notice a lot of free space. You are now ready to put in the AEM short ram intake.

Can Machines Think?

Can Machines Think ? This paper regards several points of view on the subject of, what is commonly referred to as Artificial Intelligence, or AI. AI is the attempt to make machines, specifically computers, perform intelligently through programming. Already, this definition has a problem in that the word intelligence can have many interpretations. This essay will attempt to put forward some ideas for how to approach this problem.It could be said that the human brain is nothing more than a machine, and as we know it to be capable of thought it would be fair to surmise that therefore machines can think and it is probably this, or a similar premise that inspired AI. However, within AI there are many schools of thought. Some believe that if a computer can be programmed correctly to emulate certain human processes, then it is to all intense and purposes thinking as we do.One of the early pioneers in the world of computers, Alan Turing, outlined a test in which participants are asked to int errogate a computer terminal in order to determine whether they are communicating with a human, or a computer program. Examples of programs which were put through the Turing test are ELIZA and SHRDLU both of which attempted to emulate one side of human conversation. But even if these programs did appear to be totally human, could they be said to actually be thinking ? John Searle(1984) puts forward a scenario in an attempt to devalue this idea.He refers to a program by Roger Schank at Yale university which, after being given a story will be able to answer questions regarding it. It would seem at the outset that this program would therefore be understanding the story. Searle then argues that despite not being able to understand Chinese, he would, under the correct circumstances, be able to answers Chinese questions in Chinese, relating to a story also written in Chinese. The scenario is summarised as follows; Sitting isolated in a room, Searle is given a wad of Chinese script, follow ed by another. In addition he is given a list of English rules, for correctly correlating the two.By simply following the English rules, he writes a third set of chinese words which he then returns to someone outside the room. If the first set of script was a story, the second a set of questions, he could be said to be answering the questions. In fact, from the point of view of someone standing outside the room, he would be correctly answering the questions, and thus would appear to be conversant in Chinese. This of course is not the case, as Searle would have no knowledge of what the story was about, and what the questions were asking – he would not be understanding the story.This argument is an attempt to demonstrate that although a computer program appears to be understanding a story, it is merely obeying simple instructions, and has no understanding at all. â€Å"In the linguistic jargon, they have only a syntax but no semantics† (Searle 1984) However, depending on hown one observes this problem, it can appear very differently. Regarding the entire room, the person in the room (to whom I shall refer for the sake of continuity of terms as a demon), the scripts and the person outside as a whole, we do have a system that is capable of reading and interpreting Chinese.Hofstadter extends this idea by modifying the scenario so as to shrink it to brain size, the scripts becoming neurons and so on. This effectively creates a system equivalent to the human brain. So what would be the difference between the two. Why would one be acceptable as a thinking system and one not ? Searle frequently refers to ‘causal properties' and ‘intentionality' stating that the artificial system proposed by Hofstadter would lack both of them, and that somehow the human brian has both.It is here where the subject of duality comes into the fore. Are the mind and the brain one and the same, or are they separate entities ? Many religions favour this dualist approa ch and refer to the mind, as it is in this instance, as a persons soul and regard it as being separate to the physical self. Whether the mind is separate or not, Searle's argument implies that the human brain has a mind, because of its natural causal properties, yet an artificial machine does not. But what are these natural causal properties, and from what do they derive ?Are they a result of the biological material from which the brain is made, are they a result of the brain's structure or are they a result of a breath of life from the lips of a god ? â€Å"Machines as simple as thermostats can be said to have beliefs, and having beliefs seems to be a characteristic of most machines capable of problem solving performance† (McCarthy 1979) At what point does a functioning machine gain intentionality ? Here Zenon Pylyshyn is cited from a reply made to Searle, to illustrate the complex connotations involved in the idea of the natural causal property of the brain. If more and mor e of the cells in your brain were to be replaced by integrated circuit chips, programmed in such a way as to keep the input-output function of each unit identical to that of the unit being replaced, you would in all likelihood just keep right on speaking exactly as you are doing now except that you would eventually stop meaning anything by it. What we outside observers might take to be words would become for you just certain noises that circuits caused you to make. Surely, the person in the above example would have conscious, intentional thought, despite being constructed from artificial parts. Or would this person simply be acting in the same role as the chinese room demon ? Another area rapidly developing in AI is Parallel Distributed Processing, or neural networks. These are complex structures that emulate the brains neural structure, and are usually modelled within a computer, although in theory there is nothing to stop them being constructed electronically, or even mechanically !The effect of a neural network is similar to that in Pylyshyn's example – an electronic replacement for a part of the brain. Functionally it operates almost identically to a brain and can be made to do tasks similar to those performed by Schank's story program. Could a neural network equivalent be said to have any more ‘causal properties' than just a computer program ? Searle acknowledges that since we are merely machines, it is possible that machines can think.However he finds the idea of a computer program thinking implausible. However, if we could model a brain, with atomic accuracy in a computers memory, for example in the form of a neural network, surely it would work in exactly the same way and would therefore be just as valid a thinker as a human. It seems that this whole debate rests its most basic principles on a belief; either one believes that our ‘intentionality' derives purely from our brain and its structure or one doesn't.Even if we ever do manage to construct an exact replica of a brain that appears to work identically to the real thing, how could we tell if it really is a conscious entity with true intentionality, or merely acting like the chinese room demon ? Indeed, how can we define conscious, and intentionality in that context. There must be a level of functioning or reasoning that we can use as a cut-off point for deciding whether or not something is alive and thinking. Descartes stated â€Å"I think. Therefore, I am†. But was he thinking, or merely following a mechanical pattern, with no real understanding of the words ? References Can Machines Think? Can Machines Think ? This paper regards several points of view on the subject of, what is commonly referred to as Artificial Intelligence, or AI. AI is the attempt to make machines, specifically computers, perform intelligently through programming. Already, this definition has a problem in that the word intelligence can have many interpretations. This essay will attempt to put forward some ideas for how to approach this problem.It could be said that the human brain is nothing more than a machine, and as we know it to be capable of thought it would be fair to surmise that therefore machines can think and it is probably this, or a similar premise that inspired AI. However, within AI there are many schools of thought. Some believe that if a computer can be programmed correctly to emulate certain human processes, then it is to all intense and purposes thinking as we do.One of the early pioneers in the world of computers, Alan Turing, outlined a test in which participants are asked to int errogate a computer terminal in order to determine whether they are communicating with a human, or a computer program. Examples of programs which were put through the Turing test are ELIZA and SHRDLU both of which attempted to emulate one side of human conversation. But even if these programs did appear to be totally human, could they be said to actually be thinking ? John Searle(1984) puts forward a scenario in an attempt to devalue this idea.He refers to a program by Roger Schank at Yale university which, after being given a story will be able to answer questions regarding it. It would seem at the outset that this program would therefore be understanding the story. Searle then argues that despite not being able to understand Chinese, he would, under the correct circumstances, be able to answers Chinese questions in Chinese, relating to a story also written in Chinese. The scenario is summarised as follows; Sitting isolated in a room, Searle is given a wad of Chinese script, follow ed by another. In addition he is given a list of English rules, for correctly correlating the two.By simply following the English rules, he writes a third set of chinese words which he then returns to someone outside the room. If the first set of script was a story, the second a set of questions, he could be said to be answering the questions. In fact, from the point of view of someone standing outside the room, he would be correctly answering the questions, and thus would appear to be conversant in Chinese. This of course is not the case, as Searle would have no knowledge of what the story was about, and what the questions were asking – he would not be understanding the story.This argument is an attempt to demonstrate that although a computer program appears to be understanding a story, it is merely obeying simple instructions, and has no understanding at all. â€Å"In the linguistic jargon, they have only a syntax but no semantics† (Searle 1984) However, depending on hown one observes this problem, it can appear very differently. Regarding the entire room, the person in the room (to whom I shall refer for the sake of continuity of terms as a demon), the scripts and the person outside as a whole, we do have a system that is capable of reading and interpreting Chinese.Hofstadter extends this idea by modifying the scenario so as to shrink it to brain size, the scripts becoming neurons and so on. This effectively creates a system equivalent to the human brain. So what would be the difference between the two. Why would one be acceptable as a thinking system and one not ? Searle frequently refers to ‘causal properties' and ‘intentionality' stating that the artificial system proposed by Hofstadter would lack both of them, and that somehow the human brian has both.It is here where the subject of duality comes into the fore. Are the mind and the brain one and the same, or are they separate entities ? Many religions favour this dualist approa ch and refer to the mind, as it is in this instance, as a persons soul and regard it as being separate to the physical self. Whether the mind is separate or not, Searle's argument implies that the human brain has a mind, because of its natural causal properties, yet an artificial machine does not. But what are these natural causal properties, and from what do they derive ?Are they a result of the biological material from which the brain is made, are they a result of the brain's structure or are they a result of a breath of life from the lips of a god ? â€Å"Machines as simple as thermostats can be said to have beliefs, and having beliefs seems to be a characteristic of most machines capable of problem solving performance† (McCarthy 1979) At what point does a functioning machine gain intentionality ? Here Zenon Pylyshyn is cited from a reply made to Searle, to illustrate the complex connotations involved in the idea of the natural causal property of the brain. If more and mor e of the cells in your brain were to be replaced by integrated circuit chips, programmed in such a way as to keep the input-output function of each unit identical to that of the unit being replaced, you would in all likelihood just keep right on speaking exactly as you are doing now except that you would eventually stop meaning anything by it. What we outside observers might take to be words would become for you just certain noises that circuits caused you to make. Surely, the person in the above example would have conscious, intentional thought, despite being constructed from artificial parts. Or would this person simply be acting in the same role as the chinese room demon ? Another area rapidly developing in AI is Parallel Distributed Processing, or neural networks. These are complex structures that emulate the brains neural structure, and are usually modelled within a computer, although in theory there is nothing to stop them being constructed electronically, or even mechanically !The effect of a neural network is similar to that in Pylyshyn's example – an electronic replacement for a part of the brain. Functionally it operates almost identically to a brain and can be made to do tasks similar to those performed by Schank's story program. Could a neural network equivalent be said to have any more ‘causal properties' than just a computer program ? Searle acknowledges that since we are merely machines, it is possible that machines can think.However he finds the idea of a computer program thinking implausible. However, if we could model a brain, with atomic accuracy in a computers memory, for example in the form of a neural network, surely it would work in exactly the same way and would therefore be just as valid a thinker as a human. It seems that this whole debate rests its most basic principles on a belief; either one believes that our ‘intentionality' derives purely from our brain and its structure or one doesn't.Even if we ever do manage to construct an exact replica of a brain that appears to work identically to the real thing, how could we tell if it really is a conscious entity with true intentionality, or merely acting like the chinese room demon ? Indeed, how can we define conscious, and intentionality in that context. There must be a level of functioning or reasoning that we can use as a cut-off point for deciding whether or not something is alive and thinking. Descartes stated â€Å"I think. Therefore, I am†. But was he thinking, or merely following a mechanical pattern, with no real understanding of the words ? References

Finance stock valuation Essay

Ragan, Inc., was founded nine years ago by brother and sister Carrington and Genevieve Ragan. The company manufactures and installs commercial heating, ventilation, and cooling (HVAC) units. Ragan, Inc., has experienced rapid growth because of a proprietary technology that increases the energy efficiency of its units. The company is equally owned by Carrington and Genevieve. The original partnership agreement between the siblings gave each 50,000 shares of stock. In the event either wished to sell stock, the shares first had to be offered to the other at a discounted price. Although neither sibling wants to sell, they have decided they should value their holdings in the company. To get started, they have gathered the following information about their main competitors: Expert HVAC Corporation’s negative earnings per share were the result of an accounting write-off last year. Without the write-off, earnings per share for the company would have been $0.54. Last year, Ragan, Inc., had an EPS of $4.85 and paid a dividend to Carrington and Genevieve of $75,000 each. The company also had a return on equity of 17 percent. The siblings believe that 14 percent is an appropriate required return for the company. Ragan, Inc. – Competitors CompanyEPSDiv.Stock PriceROER Arctic Cooling0.840.3917.8316.00%10.00% National Heating1.340.6519.2314.00%13.00% Expert HVAC-0.550.4318.1415.00%12.00% Industry Average0.540.4918.4015.00%11.67% Questions 1. Assuming the company continues its current growth rate, what is the value per share of the company’s stock? SOLUTION: Total dividend= (75000Ãâ€"2) = $150000 Total earning= (50000Ãâ€"4.85) = $242500 Payout ratio= 150000/242500= .62 Retention ratio= (1-.62) = .38 g= ROExb= .17x.38= .065 or 6.5% D0= 75000/50000=1.5 P0= D1/(Ke-g)= (1.5Ãâ€"1.14)/(.14-.065)= $22.8 2. To verify their calculations, Carrington and Genevieve have haired Josh Schlessman as a consultant. Josh was previously an equity analyst and covered the HVAC industry. Josh had examined the company’s financial statements, as well as those of its competitors. Although Ragan, Inc., currently has a technological advantage, his research indicates that other companies are investigating methods to improve efficiency. Given this, Josh believes that the company’s technological advantage will last only for the next five years. After that period, the company’s growth will likely slow to the industry growth average. Additionally, Josh believes that the required return used by the company is too high. He believes the industry average required return is more appropriate. Under this growth rate assumption, what is your estimate of the stock price? SOLUTION: Industry EPS= (.84+1.43+.54)/3= .91 Industry Payout ratio= .49/.91= .54 Industry retention ratio= 1-.54= .46 g= 15x.46= 6.9% D6= 1.5Ãâ€"1.14^6= 3.2925 Stock price in year 5 with the Industry rate of return = 3.2925/ (.1167-.069) = $69.02